Steve, you are my hero!
My Lorex LNR280 completely stopped responding and wouldn't boot up. I had the same exact experience as you with Lorex support.
I downloaded your files and things...almost..worked.
The UpTool exe included in your zip threw a gnarly error in a foreign language.
So, i downloaded a different version of the tool from 'academy.visiotech' (just a random site i found that had the tool). Anyway with the new tool, your solution worked like a charm to bring my LNR280 back to life.
This saved me hundreds of dollars, thanks!
Here's the link to the UpTool i used:
http://academy.visiotech.es/es/safire/downloads/software/download/42:safire-uptool/68:safire-uptool